flyin@high.again), January 31, 2000

Answers

For Bush, Speech Time Can Often Be Blooper Time

MANCHESTER, N.H. (Reuters) - For Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the 2000 presidential campaign sometimes becomes a linguistic minefield, the race that launched a thousand slips.

Bush was musing recently about growing up at the height of the Cold War. The words tumbled out, a mishmash of disconnected pronouns and strangled syntax.

``When I was coming up, it was a dangerous world and you knew exactly who they were. It was us versus them and it was clear who them was. Today we are not so sure who the they are, but we know they're there.''

Bush has a standard speech that he has given hundreds, if not thousands of times since he officially began his run for the Republican presidential nomination last spring.

But as campaigning began in earnest this month, even the most familiar words and phrases have seemed to challenge him in small ways at almost every stop.

The Texan is aware he is prone to malapropisms and that he can be as creative with the English language as his father, former President George Bush, who was lampooned mercilessly for speaking in staccato, disjointed and ungrammatical sentences.

``I know how you feel,'' Bush empathized with a woman who slipped when asking him a question at the Liberty Mutual Insurance company in Portsmouth on Friday. ``Some of the best of us mispronounce words.''

At an elementary school in Nashua this week that was celebrating what it called Perseverance Month, Bush told several hundred children: ``This is Preservation month. I appreciate preservation. This is what you do when you run for president. You've got to preserve.''

In selling his education policy to audiences he has declared that the most important question to ask is, ``Is your children learning?''

He has described Israel and the United States as buddies, pledged to put ``food on the family,'' promised to salt away enough funds to ``blockbox'' Social Security, and turned his commonly used phrase ``potential missile launches'' into utter gibberish.

Tactical nuclear weapons have become ``tacular.'' For a day Bush seemed obsessed with the word ``obfuscation,'' using it three or four times but mispronouncing it on each occasion. Then he focused on ``peroration'' for a week or so, with mixed results.

These linguistic contortions usually come at the end of a long day on the campaign trail as he gives a speech for the fourth or fifth time. They are usually missing when he speaks off the cuff or during a one-on-one conversation.

Bush believes it is fair for reporters to write about his verbal missteps ``when I say something silly.''

``Just make sure you put in there, 'He was real tired too.'''

``I would suspect that every candidate if you grind them down in a grueling schedule like we're all going through is not going to get everything perfectly correct,'' Bush said.

Asked if he had inherited the trait from his father, Bush reminded reporters that the former president was a Phi Beta Kappa at Yale University.

Pausing for comic effect, he added: ``I wasn't.''

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), January 31, 2000.

But can he spell potato?

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 31, 2000.

I especially like this one...

...At an elementary school in Nashua this week that was celebrating what it called Perseverance Month, Bush told several hundred children:

"This is Preservation month. I appreciate preservation. This is what you do when you run for president. You've got to preserve."

LOL! 35 years younger than Reagan and already starting to go senile. Not a good sign.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), February 01, 2000.

Yep. I'm scared. This is too funny!

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), February 01, 2000.

Compared with Gore's psychotic ego trips (claiming to have invented the internet and been the inspiration for Love Story) the odd malapropism doesn't signify. Al's habit of referring to himself as "moi" apparently impresses you.

-- a (rebel@withinacause.net), February 01, 2000.

Hey Hawk, why don't you run for president? Then we will leak some of your postings to TB2000 to the press and see what happens.

-- Butt Nugget (catsbutt@umailme.com), February 01, 2000.

Boy you Clinton haters sure cry a lot when you have to take your own medicine. We're gonna put Bush through the wringer, and I'm gonna love every second of it. ROTFLMAO!!!

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), February 01, 2000.

... and Clinton was the one that screwed up the Declaration of Independence, The Gettysburg address, and the Constitution in the same sentence,

... but you, and the compliance press, don't want to talk about that.

Clinton is the one who lies about seeing church burnings in Arkansas. , using that topic (most caused by same-race arsonists) to divide and increase racial hatred between his supporters and their fellow Christians ... But you don't want to cover that.

Hillary and Kennedy and Cuomo and Lowery and Sharpton are the ones spewing racially biased lies and exaggerations in NYC, but you don't want to cover that.

Gore is the one attacking his critics - who point out the truth, but he attacks them for personal destruction.

Clinton's supporters and cabinet are the ones using personal attacks and lies and extortion and secret FBI files and personal investigators and the IRS to attack their political opponents ... crimes of which you accused Nixon, and were only done once by his cronies, (for which you crucified Nixon), but you don't want to talk about that.

Clinton's cabinet are the ones who are covering up their mutual incompetence and illegal activity - but you don't want to talk about that.

Gore is the one who deliberately exaggerates his past accomplishments living as the son of a millionaire in a DC hotel suite, but you don't want to talk about that.

Your blind prejudice and hatred are rather self obvious.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), February 01, 2000.

... and the White House pressure continues on Hillary's critics:

From NewsMax.com, after one radio host asked a few relevent questions that Hillary didn't want to answer ...

""Catholic Family Radio's" Pat Campbell, who hails from Buffalo and was once a regular Bauerle listener, told NewsMax.com that the Secret Service has pressured WGR management over other controversial on-air episodes during the Clinton years."

So this radio host was silenced, his format changed, and his subsequent radio/TV interviews were 'shutdonw" by "nervous management"...wonder who in the FCC got to them about license renewal?

Ever wonder about those protesters arrested by the Secret Service when they spoke up during the Clintons' speeches? many were subsequently audtied too by the IRS....but this never happened durig the previous 200 years....only under the Clintons rule.

Oh - I forgot, the Clinton administration only shkes down Indian tribes for bribes to get their problems resolved. It doesn't use the FCC...except to attack and deny licenses to conservative Christain TV channels.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), February 01, 2000.

... speaking of hate crimes by a Clinton-Clinton-Gore supporter,

This from the NY POST is interesting.....

< Loras Schulte, Bauer's Iowa campaign director, is now planning to file a criminal voter-fraud complaint against Savage. He is investigating lodging assault charges against the columnist, who bragged online that he tried to spread the flu by licking doorknobs and coffee cups.

Schulte is also fighting the flu.

A civil suit against Salon.com, which published Savage's snot-smeared undercover account of working for Bauer, is also being discussed among the Iowa Bauerites who were the gay radical's targets.

"I don't want to be vindictive or un-Christian, but Christians aren't supposed to be doormats. Somebody has to take a stand against this sort of thing," Schulte tells me.

An apology would not be enough for Schulte. He says legal and financial penalties "are the only things these people respect."

The man's got that right. And he also would appear to have a good case.

Republicans unearthed Savage's voter-registration form, in which he certifies he is an Iowa resident. The address Seattle resident Savage gave on the form is for the Des Moines hotel in which he had been staying for a week.

According to the Iowa attorney general's office, if Savage can't prove he signed that form honestly, intending to establish permanent residency in Iowa, he could face up to $7,500 in fines and five years in jail.

The assault charge is a tad more complicated, Schulte believes. If merely spitting on someone in Iowa fits the legal definition of simple assault, how could spreading saliva intending to cause medical injury to others possibly be legit?

And get this: If you assault someone in Iowa because of their religious or political affiliation (among other reasons), you violate the state's hate-crimes statute. Simple assault thus becomes serious assault, which is punishable by up to a year in jail.

Danny Boy's smirky admission in print that he wanted to infect Bauer and his followers with the flu to get back at them for being members of the "religious right" looks pretty damning now. That's not journalism, boys, that's evidence.

Schulte should use the criminal and civil courts to hit these jackasses as hard as he can. Savage is a narcissist and a liar whose self-righteousness borders on the sociopathic. He's a disgrace to both journalism and gay activism.

And Salon should pay the price for its contempt for journalistic standards and simple human decency. Do companies like Barnes & Noble really want to support this kind of "journalism" with its advertising dollars?

Why has the mainstream media ignored this story, with its profound implications for media ethics, gay politics and the integrity of the democratic process?

Are hate crimes not hate crimes when committed against Christian conservatives?

The media's silence says it all.

e-mail: dreher@nypost.com >>

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), February 01, 2000.

Hmmmn. No answers. Their silence is damning of their chosen favorite administration.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), February 01, 2000.

Bwaaaahaaaaahaaaaahaahaahaaahaa!!

Cryyyyyyyy baby, cryyyyyyyyyyy, cryyyy, cryyyyyyy!

ROTFLMAO!

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), February 01, 2000.

Hey Hawkie! Answer me this one about Klintoonian ethics. Former Klintoon campaign advisor and fellow pervert Dick Morris brought this up in his column in today's New York Post (WWW.NYPost.com).

It seems that Klintoon financial patron James Riady has put another former Klintoon gang member on the Lippo payroll. This time its another Arkansas resident who can spill the beans on Bill, Hillary and Al: former Arkansas governor and convicted felon Jim Guy Tucker.

Seems he was put on the Lippo payroll for over $300K per year while he was awaiting sentencing for his criminal misdeeds. And also while he was under scrutiny of Ken Starr as being a possible witness in Klintoon's Arkansas shennanigans. You don't suppose that might cause Jim Guy to clam-up with Starr's investigator's do you?

And I guess that convicted felons are a hot commodity for Indonesian corporations, 'cause Riady and Lippo have sure been going after about every one that pops up recently. John Huang, Charlie Trie, Webster Hubble, Jim Guy Tucker, all of them disgraced Freinds Of Bill. And all "earning" hundreds of thousands per year from Riady. You don't think it's so they won't have to cooperate with law enforcement, do you?

Just wait till these folks have no more worth for their patrons. You won't see falling stars go down any faster than this bunch once they are dropped after their usefulness ends.

Then we'll here them open up, but all we'll hear is "Boy we you, the American people screwed. But we couldn't tell you before now". And I'll say we still should string up the whole bunch.

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), February 01, 2000.

This from Media Research Center....

---...---...---

Bush and Coke vs. Gore and Pot

By L. Brent Bozell III February 3, 2000

Last August, the national media pounced on George W. Bush over swirling rumors that he used cocaine in his youth. Reporters echoed The Washington Post, which urgently suggested to Bush "We need to ask the cocaine question." Even though the Post and others searched far and wide for any hint of evidence, no witness, no accuser stepped forward. But when Newsweek magazine (the Post's corporate cousin) spiked an excerpt from its own reporter Bill Turque's biography of Gore dealing with Gore's use of marijuana, a witness did speak out. More damning still, John Warnecke was a friend of Gore's for many years. He alleged Gore and he regularly smoked marijuana together right up to Gore's initial run for Congress in 1976 (and even once during that campaign).

For those keeping track, that would mean Gore was using drugs two years after Bush claimed he could deny using them. So if Bush's denial of drug use in the past 25 years was not a deterrent to further media investigation, does it not follow that an allegation of drug use within the last 25 years is even more reason for the media to investigate Gore? But where Bush stumbled with dates and would not issue a categorical denial to all the cocaine rumors, Gore denied his accuser's claims of regular use. "When I came back from Vietnam, yes, but not to that extent." Then he added his running mate's favorite tactic: "It's old news." And that was that for another stillborn Gore scandal.Tony Snow asked Sen. John Kerry about it on "Fox News Sunday." NBC's Katie Couric asked Gore about it directly on "Today," although without the tone she used when the subject was Bush ("Is the pot calling the kettle black?"). But ABC, CBS, CNN, and the three news magazines wouldn't touch it.

The dirty double standard in "news" coverage of the campaign is out of control. Ted Koppel's "Nightline" devoted an entire show last August to the Bush rumors. Koppel lectured: "Why not accept his one-size-fits-all declaration that when I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible? Perhaps, we might say, because he has never accepted youth and irresponsibility as legitimate excuses for illegal behavior." Gore responded to the Warnecke allegations with a very similar-sounding dodge: "When I was young, I did things young people do; when I grew up I put away childish things." But Koppel put Bush on the hot seat. Gore walks. In 1987, shortly after Ronald Reagan's nomination of Douglas Ginsburg to the Supreme Court fell apart among revelations of Ginsburg's marijuana use, Gore said he used marijuana "once or twice in college, in the Army in Vietnam, and once or twice in graduate school." Few reporters seemed to care whether Warnecke's claims of regular marijuana use would expose Gore as a liar.

More importantly, imagine if an accuser came forward and said he not only did drugs with George W. Bush, but that the Bush family pressured him to lie about it? Bush would be out of the race, thoroughly disgraced. Yet Warnecke says he was called in rapid succession by Al Gore, one of his campaign aides, and then his wife Tipper, all asking him not to talk to the press. Even most of the print publications which noted the accusations did not bring up the allegation of pressuring Warnecke to lie to reporters.

By their silence, were the media accusing Warnecke of being an unreliable source? Was Warnecke's long history of drug abuse a perversely disqualifying factor? Or his treatment for depression? Warnecke admitted to an interviewer at Salon.com that "they're going to try to make than an issue. Despite all their big talk about mental health, about removing the stigma and Tipper coming forward about her depression."

Warnecke was right, judging from ex-Gore aide Joe Cerrell on Fox's "Hannity & Colmes." He went directly to impeaching Warnecke's sanity: "By his own admission, he's a depressive. He's a schizophrenic. He hears voices."

Meanwhile, those Democrats who are prodded to respond to the issue spin badly. On "Fox News Sunday," John Kerry claimed Gore was better than Bush because he admitted use, and better than Clinton because he didn't claim he only used it once and didn't inhale. Then he turned around and said Bush's rumored drug use should be the only issue since he supported tough drug laws.

All this media silence -- after reporters marched around last August claiming Bush was "dogged by questions that won't go away" -- is another sickening signal of yet another totally tilted year of campaign coverage. Once again, our honorable Democrats are placed on a pedestal far about the common everyday hypocrisy of those moralistic Republicans. Some liberal reporters don't have a principled bone in their body, unless the principle is electing a Democrat.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), February 04, 2000.

.... and this too from the highly esteemed Dept of Injustice and Coverups .... (ref: Newsmax web site.)

With Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com StaffFor the story behind the story...

Thursday February 3, 2000 11:40 AM EST

McNulty, the FBI and the "Waco Syndrome"

Mike McNulty, the intrepid film producer and journalist, tells NewsMax.com that the FBI may be carefully tracking journalists and others who have taken an interest in the Waco story.

McNulty is the producer of two videos -- "Waco: The Rules of Engagement" and "Waco: A New Revelation" -- that continue to rock the nation.

The documentaries detail evidence that the FBI fired gunfire into the Davidian compound on the day of their 1993 raid at Waco. The FBI has denied the claim, though infrared film indicates they did, as well as autopsies on more than a dozen Davidians that showed they died by gunshot near an exit door of the compound.

Apparently the FBI is not too happy with McNulty. Last year, FBI agents showed up at the home of McNulty's children, claiming they were doing a background check on one of their neighbors. McNulty saw this as a subtle form of harassment and let it be known to the FBI he didn't like the attention.

Journalists who get involved in the Waco story report similar problems with their communications to McNulty.

"Telephone lines, fax machines, answering machines start doing strange things," McNulty said, as he described what journalists have repeatedly told him.

The phenomena happens so often that he calls the problems "the Waco Syndrome."

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), February 04, 2000.

.... and a few more details about that fun-loving, hate-filled liberal media and the Gore-Bradley-Clinton-Clinton loving media....

This too from Media Research Center. More details about the attack on Gary B's campaign in Iowa.

---...---... Imagine the media reaction if a conservative infiltrated the Gore campaign in order to spread a disease amongst his staff and volunteers, and then Matt Drudge celebrated the maneuver in a glowing article. As the New York Posts Rod Dreher put it, "the hate crimes hysterics would be baying for blood."

But that did happen to Gary Bauer with a left-wing media outlet and yet theres been no media outrage. CNN didnt even mention it in a full story on Thursdays Inside Politics about Bauer dropping out of the presidential race and none of the broadcast networks mentioned it in brief items Thursday night about Bauers departure, despite the fact that The Washington Posts Howard Kurtz wrote about it that morning.

So far, while it has generated some interest on some radio and television talk shows, the totality of television network news show coverage seems to be a brief exchange on FNCs Special Report with Brit Hume on Monday night. MRC analyst Brad Wilmouth alerted me to this exchange in the roundtable portion of the January 31 show:

Morton Kondracke: "If theres been a low in American journalism, it is Salon magazine, which-" Brit Hume: "Thats an Internet magazine." Kondracke: "Its an Internet magazine. Which confessed their sex columnist, whatever that is, invaded the Bauer headquarters, and this guy had the flu, and he went around licking cups and-" Hume: "Door knobs." Kondracke: "-pens and door knobs and stuff like that in order to spread the flu among Gary Bauers supporters, and then tried to give the flu to Gary Bauer himself, I mean, and then wrote about all this in Salon, I mean cancel your subscription." Hume: "Are you sure he was serious?" Kondracke: "Seems to be. I mean he was proud of it. He regarded it as an act of terrorism, I mean quote unquote."

If hate speech is to be condemned uniformly, then whether the guy really did those things or just made up the story doesnt matter as he conveyed hateful thoughts and Salon ran his piece as if it were accurate and, as Kurtz reported, is unwilling to call the story inaccurate.

Two days later Washington Times "Inside the Beltway" columnist John McCaslin picked up on the article and relayed Salons defense:

Bad news and good news for Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer: He didn't win New Hampshire, but at least he didn't come down with the flu. If nothing else, the latter represents a victory over homosexual columnist Dan Savage, who -- if we are to believe his bizarre penmanship in the on-line publication Salon.com -- orchestrated a vile infiltration of Bauer 2000 campaign headquarters in Des Moines.

Posing as one Mr. Bauer's "gay bashing" volunteers, Mr. Savage, feverish with the flu, "hatched a plan to infect the candidate himself." In other words, get close enough to Mr. Bauer "to lay him flat" just before yesterday's New Hampshire primary. "I started licking doorknobs," Mr. Savage writes. "The front door, office doors, even a bathroom door. When that was done, I started in on the staplers, phones and computer keyboards. Then I stood in the kitchen and licked the rims of all the clean coffee cups drying in the rack."

While he admits to "feeling slightly sickened" by his perverted act, Mr. Savage's upset stomach didn't keep him from chewing on "my killer pen" and handing it to Mr. Bauer for an autograph. "My bodily fluids -- flu bugs and all -- were all over his hand," says Mr. Savage. "He handed me the pen, and started to walk toward his van. He stopped to answer a reporter's question, and I saw him run a finger under his nose. Perfect. I didn't need to lick all those doorknobs after all."

Reached in New Hampshire yesterday, Mr. Bauer's communications director, Tim Goeglein, was furious: "It would appear to be a hate crime through and through, and [Mr. Savage's] seething anger and hatred at Christians is enormously disturbing." He adds: "This is the sort of intolerance that the left in America seems almost preoccupied with. It would be nice to see some indignation, some anger among that crowd for this sort of outrageous and unacceptable behavior. This is not journalism, this is trash can politics at its worst."

From San Francisco, Salon.com editor David Talbot tells Inside the Beltway that Mr. Savage is an "infrequent contributor" to the publication. Still, "like we do with all writers, we don't cut them loose when they get into trouble. We're not abandoning Dan," he stresses.

But Mr. Talbot also acknowledges "a lot of dissent and controversy [among staff] at Salon.com" about whether to run the piece. In retrospect, he says, a disclaimer should have accompanied the article, "explaining Salon.com did not assign, or endorse, or condone" its content.

END Excerpt

On Thursday a major media outlet others usually follow caught up with the story, but still no wider media reaction. In a piece on the front page of the February 3 Style section, the Washington Posts Howard Kurtz reported that "a Salon magazine writer who went undercover and tried to infect presidential candidate Gary Bauer with the flu has sniffled his way into a heap of trouble."

In addition to his doorknob licking, Kurtz added that "Savage also says he voted in the Iowa caucuses, despite the fact that he lives in Seattle. State Republican officials in Des Moines have asked the local prosecutor to launch a criminal investigation."

Salon editor David Talbot suggested the story should have been taken as humor and was really made up, but Kurtz noted "Talbot is not certain which elements of the story might be less than truthful."

An except from Kurtzs story:

David Talbot, Salon's editor, says he hasn't been inundated with so much hate mail since the online magazine disclosed a 30-year-old extramarital affair involving Illinois congressman Henry Hyde during the impeachment saga.

"The political culture has lost its sense of humor," Talbot said from San Francisco. "We believe anyone who knows Dan Savage's writing knows he is given to a kind of spirited and funny gay hyperbole....He was, out of his strong personal convictions, trying to freak out the Bauer people."

An Internet magazine, unlike establishment publications, ought to embrace such "gonzo journalism," Talbot said.

Still, Salon is distancing itself a bit from the stunt by Savage, a freelance contributor. Shortly after the piece appeared, the Webzine told readers: "We still believe publishing the article was the right choice, but we also feel compelled to say: We didn't assign Savage to infect Bauer. We don't condone or endorse what he says he did."

Savage is associate editor of an alternative Seattle paper called the Stranger, where he writes a syndicated sex advice column called "Savage Love." Talbot says Savage is "laying low" -- and not talking to reporters -- out of concern for both the legal and physical threats he has received.

In his piece -- titled "Stalking Gary Bauer" -- Savage wrote: "My plan was a little malicious -- even a little mean-spirited -- but those same words describe the tactics used by Bauer and the rest of the religious right against gays and lesbians....When Bauer tells people that gays and lesbians are a threat to families, I take that personally. I feel I have a right to be angry." He quoted a Bauer campaign worker as telling him that "God said that homosexuals have to die."

Recalling the moment when Bauer took the pen that had been in his mouth, Savage wrote: "Score! My bodily fluids -- flu bugs and all -- were all over his hand!"

Talbot says editors asked Savage about the account's veracity before it was published "and he was somewhat evasive. He later made clear to me he was exaggerating," although Talbot is not certain which elements of the story might be less than truthful.

Thousands of readers have registered their complaints. "If Savage's 'sick' reporting is Salon's idea of a new kind of witty journalism, they should remember that wit requires humor and I'm not laughing," one wrote....

END Excerpt

To read Salon.coms reaction to the controversy, with a link to the original Savage piece, go to: http://www.salon.com/politics2000/feature/2000/01/29/savage_reaction/index.html

In the original late January story Savage spewed: "In my Sudafed-induced delirium I decided that if it's terrorism Bauer wants, then it's terrorism Bauer is going get -- and I'm just the man to terrorize him. Naked, feverish and higher than a kite on codeine aspirin, I called the Bauer campaign and volunteered. My plan? Get close enough to Bauer to give him the flu, which, if I am successful, will lay him flat just before the New Hampshire primary. I would go to Bauer's campaign office and cough on everything -- phones and pens, staplers and staffers. I even hatched a plan to infect the candidate himself. I would keep the pen in my mouth until Bauer dropped by his offices to rally the troops. And when he did, I would approach him and ask for his autograph, handing him the pen from my flu-virus incubating mouth."

One of the few media figures to jump on this story was New York Post columnist Rod Dreher who wrote about it on January 28. He followed up with another column on February 1 in which he argued: "Savage is a narcissist and a liar whose self-righteousness borders on the sociopathic. He's a disgrace to both journalism and gay activism. "And Salon should pay the price for its contempt for journalistic standards and simple human decency. Do companies like Barnes & Noble really want to support this kind of "journalism" with its advertising dollars? "Why has the mainstream media ignored this story, with its profound implications for media ethics, gay politics and the integrity of the democratic process? "Are hate crimes not hate crimes when committed against Christian conservatives? "The media's silence says it all."

Indeed it does. -- Brent Baker

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), February 04, 2000.

The latest press comment here is that Bush is Quayle without a brain. I think that says it all: potatoe aside.

Best wishes,,,

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), February 04, 2000.

Then I guess the press also says the Clinton's and Gore are a presidency completely without morals scruples, bought by the Chinese and Indonesian money? (... and other assorted bribes too numerous to mention.)

Hmmn. Nope, they aren't saying that are they? Probably too busy campaigning and donating money for Hillary.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), February 04, 2000.

Far better to have a few bloopers than outright lies. I was surprised to hear NPR (rarely a friend of the conservative cause) air some sharply critical comments about some of Mr. Gore's recent escapades. They noted that a deepening sense of cynicism has descended on those covering his campaign.

He's even gone so far as completely deny events that are easily verifiable. It seems that some Gore staffers were heard being downright abusive to Senator John Kerry, who's been critical of Mr. Gore and who is disabled as a result of his service in Vietnam. They went so far as to call him "a cripple". When asked about this abuse, Senator Kerry replied, "Yes, well, it's true. I am a cripple. Of course, that's the only true thing they've said recently!"

When asked about his staffers' behavior, Mr. Gore said that it never happened! Not "I'm not sure about that" or "I'll look into it", just outright denial. He's certainly learned a great deal in the last eight years, hasn't he?

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), February 04, 2000.

All I wanna know is: where in the hell is Ross Perot? This dog and pony show is by no means funny enough yet.

-- Kyle (fordtbonly@aol.com), February 04, 2000.